A Chinese tycoon is trying to buy a huge tract of land in Iceland for a $100 million eco-tourism project that will include a golf course, the Financial Times said Tuesday.

Huang Nubo, a real estate investor and former government official, has sealed a provisional deal to acquire 300 square kilometres (about 200 square miles) of Icelandic territory, the newspaper said.

Iceland occupies a strategically important location between Europe and North America and has been touted as a potential hub for Asian cargo should climate change open Arctic waters to shipping.

Forbes ranked Huang as China?s 161st richest man in 2010, with a net worth of $890 million. His company, Zhongkun Group, owns resorts and tourist facilities across China and around the world.

The Financial Times said he had previously worked at China?s Central Propaganda Department and the Ministry of Construction.

The Iceland Review Online reported last week that Huang signed a deal with land owners including the Icelandic government last Wednesday, and that the deal was dependent on approval by both China and Iceland.

Iceland's booming economy collapsed in 2008 when its hugely overstretched banking sector plunged suddenly into crisis and its three major banks collapsed within a matter of weeks.

Since then, the country has gone through much soul-searching and a string of painful changes to put its house in order, helped by an International Monetary Fund rescue.

On Friday last week, the IMF approved the final release of funds in its $2.25 billion bailout programme for Iceland.

It is an interesting game, to be sure. We have seen precisely this sort of maneuver in the area of Gay nationalism as well. I do not know how much weight to give to a source like Wikinews, but this reporting from a different viewpoint is familiar.

Quote

Despite the claim Means has made, Naomi Archer, liaison of Lakotah Oyate stated to Wikinews that Means took control of the organization and hijacked it and its website on December 29. Archer also said that Lakotah Oyate or the delegation are not a government entity and do not make decisions for the Nation.

"The legitimate actions of the Lakota people are not determined by one person [Russell Means] or even one group, but by the [Lakota] people themselves," added Archer.

...

Since the Delegation's press conference, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Reservation have rejected Means's and the delegation's declaration of secession.

"They're individuals acting on their own. They did not come to the Rosebud Sioux tribal council or our government in any way to get our support and we do not support what they've done. We do not support what Means and his group are doing and they don't have any support from any tribal government I know of. They don't speak for us," said Rosebud Sioux Tribe president, Rodney Bordeaux.

Despite those rejections, Archer said that the Pine Ridge Reservation's council will "consider the proposal." A representative for the Standing Rock Reservation's council has said that that reservation is also considering Lakotah Oyate's proposal.

Wild declarations of independence seem to be thought of as a sure means to quick news coverage. They are... but not to positive coverage. It seems to be thought that, if one heroic figure will come forward, the masses will rise up and follow. No examples of the successful use of this strategy come to mind.

Mr. Means appears also to have more reasonably suggested the formation of a power company, a bank, and similar institutions. That would be an entirely sane approach. It is possible to create autonomous institutions. Having done so, it is possible to create even more autonomous institutions. In due course, ever-growing autonomy becomes an accomplished fact. The flags, the logos, the lines on maps -- these are quite insubstantial things. If one really must have them, then an autonomous people can produce them. It is a simple matter. The state of Alaska solicited the aid of school children to assist them with the acquisition of these symbols -- an indication of the relative gravity and importance of such things. Imagining that these insubstantial things have the magical power to bring real autonomy into existence (rather than being simple expressions of an accomplished autonomy) supposes that symbols possess somewhat more magic than they really have.

In my view, this event really must be seen as a lesson in how not to proceed.

Threaten Land Liens, Contested Real Estate Over Five State Area in U.S. West

Lakota Satisfies Treaty Council Mandate of 33 Years, Drafted by 97 Indigenous Nations

Dakota Territory Reverts back to Lakota Control According to U.S., International Law

Washington D.C. – Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday’s withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.

“This is an historic day for our Lakota people,” declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. “United States colonial rule is at its end!”

“Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit,” shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. “They never honored the treaties, that’s the reason we are here today.”

The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.

“In order to stop the continuous taking of our resources – people, land, water and children- we have no choice but to claim our own destiny,” said Phyllis Young, a former Indigenous representative to the United Nations and representative from Standing Rock.

Property ownership in the five state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property.

Young added, “The actions of Lakota are not intended to embarrass the United States but to simply save the lives of our people”.

Following Monday’s withdrawal at the State Department, the four Lakota Itacan representatives have been meeting with foreign embassy officials in order to hasten their official return to the Family of Nations.

Lakota’s efforts are gaining traction as Bolivia, home to Indigenous President Evo Morales, shared they are “very, very interested in the Lakota case” while Venezuela received the Lakota delegation with “respect and solidarity.”

“Our meetings have been fruitful and we hope to work with these countries for better relations,” explained Garry Rowland. “As a nation, we have equal status within the national community.”

Education, energy and justice now take top priority in emerging Lakota. “Cultural immersion education is crucial as a next step to protect our language, culture and sovereignty,” said Means. “Energy independence using solar, wind, geothermal, and sugar beets enables Lakota to protect our freedom and provide electricity and heating to our people.”

The Lakota reservations are among the most impoverished areas in North America, a shameful legacy of broken treaties and apartheid policies. Lakota has the highest death rate in the United States and Lakota men have the lowest life expectancy of any nation on earth, excluding AIDS, at approximately 44 years. Lakota infant mortality rate is five times the United States average and teen suicide rates 150% more than national average . 97% of Lakota people live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers near 85%.

“After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative,” emphasized Duane Martin Sr. “The only alternative is to bring freedom into its existence by taking it back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway.”

We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have suffered from cultural and physical genocide in the colonial apartheid system we have been forced to live under. We are in Washington DC to withdraw from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law. For more information, please visit our new website at www.lakotafreedom.com.

It is America’s wealthiest postcode – 216 acres of tropical gorgeousness and palatial living reachable only by private ferry, yacht or helicopter. Surrounded by sand imported from the Bahamas, planted with orchids and palms brought from the Indian Ocean and South Pacific, and a-twitter with the sound of caged toucans and macaws that enjoy daily outings with a bird walker, Fisher Island is known as Fantasy Island. [..] The public are not allowed on to the island unless invited and the privacy of its mainly white residents – largely financiers, corporate executives and property barons with little public name recognition who live there part-time – is fiercely guarded. [..] The latest census, in 2000, gave the population as 467 and the island operates as a private club where cash is not required, just a membership card. It has eighteen tennis courts, two marinas and a heliport.

Apart from the irrelevant social issues, a "private club" might be a workable scheme in some legislations. www.fisherisland.com

Obviously these kids displayed signs of antisemitism or Nazi leanings at home. Can the state be responsible for the way the parents notice or fail to notice what their children are doing or which way they were going?

Yes. It is within the responsibility of the state to regulate immigration and naturalization processes. It is also within the responsibility of the state to ensure that children are educated and supervised by qualified individuals only. Certainly, the state can't supervise each and every family, but children don't grow up in a vacuum -- they go to school, they have neighbours and they most assuredly spread their views to a sufficient number of people to make the society become alerted at an early stage. The state has the responsibility to encourage parents, teachers, neighbours and school psychologists to give full attention to children with antisocial behaviour and mindset.

As for immigrants, the established policies vary from country to country -- some governments accept (or ship in) everybody, even felons, while others are very picky and accept only skilled workers and business people. The interests of some would-be immigrants quite often run contrary to the interests of the state, and of course any good government will upheld the interests of the state.

The irony in the reported case is that those "kids" grew up not somewhere in a "normal" country, but in Israel, and to people who claim themselves to be Jewish. Those people came to Israel pretending their being persecuted, while they indeed were Russians tolerating anti-Jewish opinions. We are not talking here about revolting teenagers who paint graffities on bridge pillars, we are talking about young men who purposefully and repeatedly physically assaulted vulnerable members of society. Aggressive and dangerous criminals must be removed from society, whatever has caused them to become criminals. In that particular case, deprivation of citizenship status and parachuting them over Syria woud be an option.

Gay people who will arrive in the Gay State from some Christian or Muslim country with their reluctant teenager sons, will probably put others in danger. Also, the children born and raised in the Gay country, can non the less grow up homophobes. This will not necessarily be the case in all or even most of these families, but there will be a sufficiently large numbers of them. Thus there probably will be a need for additional supervision of children and, if neccessary, deportation of those straights who turn out to be homophobes.

Seems to be a problem of parenting, not of political or definitions of what ________ (fill in the blank) is.

I would imagine that there is a difference between Israel and the Gay Nation on who it takes in. We already know that Gay has nothing to do with your grandparents, its is not 100% hereditary and is more on the level of a personal thing. Jews extend "Jewishness" back to grandparents. The Gay Nation would focus more on the sexual orientation of the individual, not the racial or genetic links to past gays.

Obviously these kids displayed signs of antisemitism or Nazi leanings at home. Can the state be responsible for the way the parents notice or fail to notice what their children are doing or which way they were going?

It is expected that gay parents will arrive upon the Shores of the Gay Nation with children in tow. Many of those children will not be GLBT. It will be up to parents and the society to teach the children tolerance of other peoples.

Kids, teenagers of even well adjusted homes will "act out" and do things which later on in life they would not dream about doing. The rebellion of teenager against parent is as old as our species. Teen rebellion is not unknown for being too much.

When immigrants from anywhere bring very young children with them, indeed -- anything is possible. While the situation is not entirely parallel, it does rather underscore an old suggestion (a rather forcefully made one) by K6: if a Gay state is to grant anything resembling a "right of return," then the Gay state really must define what, specifically, is meant by the word "Gay."

Israeli police have broken up a neo-Nazi cell that had been carrying out attacks on religious Jews, homosexuals, drug addicts and workers, in a case that has shocked the Jewish State.

The youths, who had Nazi tattoos and allegedly celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday, belonged to Soviet Jewish families who had immigrated to Israel under its law of return, which allows people with at least one Jewish grandparent to become Israeli citizens.

Under strict religious rules, however, many of the former Soviet immigrants are not actually considered to be Jewish.

“It is difficult to believe that Nazi ideology sympathisers can exist in Israel, but it is a fact,” said Major Revital Almog, the police officer in charge of the year-long investigation that began when vandals daubed swastikas and Hitler’s name on synagogues in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.

I admitt that I was obviously wrong about the improbability of straight homophobes desiring to live in a Gay country. If there is such a thing in this world as neo-Nazis emigrating to the State of Israel, then anything is possible. I am eager to get to know what the State of Israel is going to do with these its enemies.

6.5 billion people on earth is too many people. in 2050 when the population hits 9 or 10 billion we will be in even worse shape. The other problems we have from undrinkable water to global warming is due to how many of us are here taking up space and using resources. Population is humanity's biggest problem - solve that the rest becomes more manageable.

Hm, I beg to disagree slightly... There seems to be less real lack of ressources on this planet, but rather a very, very bad management on most of the planet. It is very well true that in some regions the land can't support the local population, but it is certainly unlikely the Earth has reached its limits of human population.

Not only are wast areas of North and South America and Russia criminally underpopulated, but with modern recycling and purification technologies it is possible to make life pleasant and healthy even in totally overcrowded areas. If people would cease eating dead animals, the amount of vegetarian food would suffice for a much larger population than what we have now. Much of the environmental pollution is caused by all those pig farms and cattle farms. You can count how much biomass is attributed to all those vertivrates designated to land on the dish, and calculate how many people could be afforded if humanity gave up its carnivory lifestyle.

Anothere shortage in food supply seems to come near us by the insane plans of using sugsr cane, mais and oil for production of ethanol and "bio-diesel". If people in poor countries will be forced to compete with cars in rich counties, there will be a next starwation well, caused wilfully and artificially.

In principle, population control is a good thing, thince every system has its maximum load. I am solely not convinced that humanity actually has reached that point. Urban life indeed might demand more energy and technology, but neither energy nor technologie are not limited goods. With energy, drinkable water and food can be produced in significant amounts. Instead of reducing the population, we can slightly change our habits - e.g. using public transportation and bikes in urban centers is a most reasonable proposal.

For our own purposes, the biological procreation might or might not constitute a problem, in future. Since Gays do not "get" children unintentionally (what is mostly the case eith straights), there is always a purposefull action necessary for getting children. Should "breeding" ever become a problem or be unwanted from political reasons in the Gays country, this behaviour might be most effectively targeted by liability life support and education costs etc. A criminal persecution, for such a reason is quite unimaginable.

I'm all for population controls. I think China is heading in the general right direction, yet at the same time I believe they need to recognize that their abortion laws have to be redefined to stop the killing of fetuses based on gender alone. If the global population continues the way it is going then the rest of the world will have to do "something" to fix the problem. Hopefully by the time the rest of the world needs to do something China will have worked out all the details and provide us with a model that works fairly to limit if not decrease population numbers.

6.5 billion people on earth is too many people. in 2050 when the population hits 9 or 10 billion we will be in even worse shape. The other problems we have from undrinkable water to global warming is due to how many of us are here taking up space and using resources. Population is humanity's biggest problem - solve that the rest becomes more manageable.

Extraordinary laws require extraordinary punishments to the law breakers. It is impossible to go into every bedroom and watch to make certain that the couples do play safe, however there should be a strong message in the punishment that makes it clear that "unlawful" pregnancy is not 'worth' the risk to play unsafe.

China is fully aware that its "small" land area (compared to its population) can not sustain a population in excess of 1 billion people. Although its population control laws appear draconian, I believe it is the most logical and sane approach to dealing with a problem that should have been addressed earlier.

Earth is not enough to sustain our present numbers. We are using way too many technological and artificial processes to feed, cloth and supply the basics for the people we do. And still we have starving/hungry children in even the richest country on earth (USA). We need to fit our numbers to what a planet can sustain - not force the planet to sustain more through artificial methods which in some cases does more harm than good and has already resulted in the collapse of ecosystems (corals) has resulted in the loss of irreplaceable life support (Amazon Basin) and has lead to far reaching damages to the natural order that leads to loss of land (Louisiana) or results in catastrophic failures of systems when Mom nature gets in a huff (Broken levees - flooding, etc)

As for slogans. I find none of them to be "crude" compared to the truth: "More hungry mouths kill more cruelly"... Hunger is not a nice way to die... etc.

There is a great, muddled tangle of issues in that story, but I can only bring myself to address one. If failure to comply with the policy will, in fact, result in the toppling of one's house and the confiscation of one's cows, then just what misunderstanding is being generated by the slogan "Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected"? Some might well view the toppling of a family's house and confiscation of their goods as a harsh and draconian measure on the part of the government and this view might well tarnish the image of the government. Frankly, if the truth tarnishes a government's image, the government should look to changing its ways, not to changing what people say about it. If they find that this is not possible, then they are stuck with the tarnished image.

For myself, I don't see ten year's income as that remarkable a fine -- civil judgments in the US often amount to many times as much. I could, however, see cutting it in half -- provided the fines were changed from some arbitrary monetary amount to an amount relative to the income of the person fined. There is no reason for people who violate this government policy in urban areas to suffer a lesser penalty in relation to their financial status than violators in rural areas suffer.

China has banned crude and insensitive slogans promoting the country's "one-child" family planning policy, such as "Raise fewer babies but more piggies," which have stoked anger in rural areas, state media said Sunday.

China's 28-year-old family planning policy limits most urban couples to just one child and allows some families in the countryside to have a second child if their first is a girl.

Critics say that has led to forced abortions and sterilizations and a dangerously imbalanced sex ratio due to the traditional preference for male heirs, which has prompted countless families to abort female fetuses in hopes of getting boys.

The policy continues to engender anger and resentment, especially among farmers in the countryside, because of the sometimes brutal methods used to enforce it, such as heavy fines and the seizure of property. Local authorities themselves face demotions, criticism or the loss of jobs if they fail to achieve population targets.

The National Population and Family Planning Commission said it was striking insensitive slogans promoting the policy in order to dispel the impression the government was "simply forcing people to give up having more babies, causing misunderstanding (of) the policy and even tarnishing the image of the government," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Xinhua said uncouth slogans also threatened to undermine China's efforts to keep the population under control. It paraphrased the family planning commission as saying such "low-quality slogans" could lead to "public complaint and resentment."

Among the slogans that were forbidden were "One more baby means one more tomb" and "Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected." Such slogans are often found painted on roadside buildings in rural areas.

The planning commission issued a list of 190 acceptable slogans, such as "Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children" and "Both boys and girls are parents' hearts."

The government contends the one-child policy has helped prevent at least 300 million births – about the size of the U.S. population – and aided China's rapid economic development.

But it has also been the cause of recent protests.

In May, thousands of farmers in southern Guangxi province rioted to protest fines they said were imposed "arbitrarily and brutally" against people who had more children than allowed under the policy, state media reported. Authorities detained 28 people after the incident.

Media reports said all public servants in the province's Bobai county had been ordered to collect fines from people who violated the policy. If violators failed to pay within three days, their homes would be demolished and their belongings seized.

One villager said some fees were equivalent to $1,300 (U.S.) – an unmanageable amount for an area where most annual incomes were only $130.

Close enough. What's 543,884 square meters between friends? It's not like anyone has seriously measured the place. I'm fairly certain the deed will say 'approximately' 161,000 acres. This swath of land is costing someone 0.74 per square meter. I seriously doubt one can buy even ugly carpeting for that price.

The last big piece of privately owned timberland in the Adirondacks — a craggy 161,000-acre wilderness of hardwood forests, 80 mountain peaks, 70 crystal-clear lakes and ponds, undammed rivers, white water gorges and secluded bogs — has been sold for $110 million to the Nature Conservancy, in a move intended to protect the land from future development. [..] The conservancy will also continue to pay $1.1 million in local property taxes to the 31 towns in 6 counties where the land is situated.

If my calcilations are correct, 161,000 acres make some 651 kmē, right? 110 million USD for 651 kmē isn't extraordinary much, even considering 1.1 million USD per year in taxes. Somebody tell me, "there is no free land"...

I think we all agree that the Gay settlement should posess as much territory as possible, and have as much power as it can gain. But it is also clear that 400 km2 in Mongolia will not necessarily serve us better than 20km2 in Thailand. Ressources must be awailable - whether they are located on our territory or can be purchased easily. Good relationships to countries which are not homophobic are important, and diversification is probably even more important.

Thus, a sea port would be really necessary. BTW, have you seen pictures of Tel Aviv? The architecture is simply awesome.